


Charlie Meets The Scientist (Again)

by orphan_account



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Chance Meetings, M/M, a) this is for a collection and b) i just saw pacrim 2 but im too emo to write for it yet, because im Creative and Original, i dont know how else to tag this, im suffering in this ao3 tonight, its?? kinda pre-slash?????? i dont even know, listen, naming the scientist after scientists, post-s12, so here it am
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 04:08:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14072583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Charlie runs into the Scientist.





	Charlie Meets The Scientist (Again)

**Author's Note:**

> so i named Scientist after Erwin Schrödinger (bc Schrödigner's cat...get it) and James Chadwick, an english physicist (bc hermann gottlieb is also that and We All Know why people ship this pairing) 
> 
> **Prompt:**
> 
> charlie runs into the scientist out of nowhere and they get to chattin'. nothing explicit, can remain platonic if ya want

**12:00 pm**   
**On a Thursday**   
**Philadelphia, PA**

Charlie is bored. So,  _so_  bored.

The bar is usually this quiet on at noon on a Thursday, that's no surprise, but today it's practically a ghost town. The rest of the Gang is off on other schemes; Dee and Mac are out trying to con men into free lunches, Frank is off with Ponderosa doing whatever it is they do, and Dennis is - well, doing whatever it is he does in North Dakota with his kid. Charlie thinks whatever scheme he's trying to pull off must be elaborate as hell, because he's been gone nearly 3 weeks.

Charlie was left alone, probably to clean something, but the bar looks  _fine_. There is not a single task left for him to do. Usually, he'd go home and get high or something along those lines, but he's filled with some sort of strange, nervous energy, so instead of taking a left towards home when he leaves, he takes a right up an unfamiliar street. 

After a good 20 minutes of walking, the plain red brick buildings give way to a park. It's small, less than a city block, but has a nice twisting path through the middle, a pond, growing trees, and only a few stray people walking about around it. Charlie's not much of a park person - never really has been, they're great places to get stabbed - but he shrugs and crosses the street to get to it anyway. 

The leaves on the trees are starting to turn shades of yellow, orange, and red, a sure sign of fall. Charlie walks leisurely down the path, wandering down aimlessly until he reaches the edge of the pond. There's a pair of ducks paddling around in the middle. Charlie wonders vaguely if he could catch them; while they'd never be quite the same as pigeon they'd probably taste-

"Charlie?"

He jumps, his train of thought cut short, and turns to look at who just called his name. Not the Waitress, he could tell that immediately from the voice alone. Sitting on the bench behind him is a man he vaguely recognizes, with a tie and a bagged lunch on his lap.

"Sorry, do I know you?" Charlie asks. 

"Yes, you participated in a study I conducted." The man says. When Charlie simply stares at him, completely lost, he sighs. "You took an intelligence pill?"

"Oh! Science bitch! Guy! Science man!" Charlie says. "What are you doing out here? Don't you work?"

"I'm on my lunch break," Science Guy says. "What on earth are  _you_  doing here?"

"I went on a walk." Charlie says. "The whole Gang's out doing other shit and the bar was clean, so..." He gestures vaguely at the park around them.

Scientist looks puzzled for a second, and then it turns into a frown. "Charlie," He says. He pauses, makes eye contact, and then looks awkwardly away. "Do you want to eat with me? Talk?"

"Oh! Sure, man!" Charlie says. He plops down on the seat next to Science Guy and smiles broadly. "Whatcha got for lunch?"

"It's, um, a sandwich and sun chips." Science Guy says. "Do you want the chips, or...?"

Charlie waves his hand dismissively. "Nah, I'll just steal the cheese off your sandwich. Here." With that, he pulls the top slice of bread off the sandwich and takes the cheese, stuffing it into his mouth before the Scientist can get out of a word of protest.

"So, Science Dude," Charlie says. "Do any cool experiments lately?"

"Not in particular," The Scientist says. "And my name is not 'Science Dude'."

"Well, until I know your name, I'm gonna call you Science Dude or Man or Guy or whatever." Charlie says. He picks up the top slice of the sandwich and tears off a piece, then tosses that into the pond for the ducks. 

"It's Dr. Chadwick." The Scientist says. "But you can call me Erwin."

"Well, which one do you want me to use? You can't have two different names, man." Charlie asks. 

"Erwin is fine," Erwin says. 

"Cool, dude." Charlie says. He chucks another piece of the bread into the pond. After a few seconds of awkward silence, and with the entire piece of bread gone and thrown away, Charlie asks, "What've you been up to since you tried to make me smart?"

The Scientist - Erwin - chuckles. "Well, that experiment was a failure." He says. "Tang-see and I tried to work on other placebo effect experiments, but never got funding. And Tang-see graduated and moved labs last year." At that, he frowns and leans a little further back onto the park bench. "I tried to formulate an experiment about-"

"Not about  _science_ , man," Charlie groans. "Like, fun shit. Any cool party stories?"

"I'm afraid not." Erwin says. "I don't party much."

"Do you drink at all?" Charlie positions himself sideways on the bench to fully face Erwin. "Get high ever? Ghost hunting? Any cool science shit involving ghosts or ghouls or something of that nature?"

Erwin laughs. "No. I don't study the paranormal; I'm a sociologist."

"A sociologist? What is that?" Charlie asks. 

"I study people, human behaviors, things like that." He frowns at Charlie's blank expression. "It's - the experiment I was doing on you, I was seeing how the placebo effect would affect your relationships. Do you see?"

"Yeah. Not at all." Charlie says. 

Erwin sighs. "It's...not important." He carefully wraps up the sandwich before Charlie can start chucking the turkey slice to the ducks, and slips it back into the paper bag he brought it in. "Anyway, what about you? Any recent developments?"

Charlie snorts a bit at his word choice but starts his ramble anyway. "Well, let's see, it's been what? Five years? So, Mac and Dennis burned their apartment down, so they went to live with Dee, and they ended up staying in Dee's living room. Then they tried to stay in the suburbs for a while, but I think they might've tried to kill each other? I don't exactly know what happened there, but anyway, they lost a bet and had to stay in Dee's apartment again but also share a bed with an old black man. Also Mac fixed up their old apartment, like, a month ago, but Dennis left before he could stay there for long, so."

"Dennis left?" Erwin frowns. "Was he the clean-shaven one out of the other two men in your friend group?"

"Yeah, that's him." Charlie says. He kicks a pebble and it rolls down into the grass. 

"Why did he leave?" Erwin asks. 

"Well, we did this thing a couple of years ago where we flew to LA and tried to beat Wade Bogg's drinking record, may he rest in peace. I actually can't remember what happened since I won." Erwin raises his eyebrows at this, but Charlie carries on, undisturbed. "Anyway, Dennis got off the plane in North Dakota and slept with a girl, and then she got pregnant, and now Dennis is taking care of the kid with her in North Dakota. Mac offered to help him, but he wanted to, like, fake-marry him to do that? Which Dennis wasn't that cool with."

"Wait - is Mac gay?" Erwin asks. 

"Oh, yeah." Charlie says. He kicks another pebble down into the grass. 

"Huh." Erwin says. He wrings his hands a bit. "How did - how did your friend group take it? That news?"

"Oh, we'd known for years," Charlie says. "It was honestly frustrating how in denial he was."

Erwin hums. Charlie kicks his feet and sends a few more pebbles flying down into the grass. A few make it to the pond's shallows. "Charlie," Erwin says. "This is a bit out of the blue, but would you want to get a drink? Coffee, I mean, with me? Sometime?"

Charlie's eyes light up. "Oh, yeah! Sure! Although we will have to avoid some of the shops because I'm kinda banned from them."

Erwin furrows his eyebrows. "Do I want to know why?"

"No." Charlie says. "Did you want coffee now, or what?"

"I have to get back to work." Erwin frowns. "But, if you're free tomorrow morning...?"

"I can come back here tomorrow at your lunch break." Charlie says. 

"You could visit me at work," Erwin says. He stutters over his next few words. "Which, um, is right across the street, actually." He points to a plain white building to the left of the park. "I'll pay for your lunch."

"Oh, deal." Charlie grins. He hops up and smacks Erwin happily on the shoulder. "I'll see you then!"

Charlie walks back to Paddy's with a spring in his step. 


End file.
